Drew convicted of embezzlement

A jury Dec. 12 found Mandy Drew, a former Town of Ridgeland employee, guilty of embezzling about $118,000.

Circuit Court Judge Carmen T. Mullen sentenced Drew, 36, of Ridgeland, to five years in prison, followed by five years of probation. Drew has also been ordered to pay $118,036 in restitution to the town.

Drew was arrested March 16, 2011. She had worked for the town’s water department for more than 15 years. The actual theft was between April 1, 2009, and Jan. 18, 2011, according to an arrest warrant.

The funds were discovered to be missing during a routine year-end audit of the town’s finances. The town asked the S.C. Law Enforcement Division to investigate and Drew was suspended without pay.

According to the warrant, Drew was in charge of the “safekeeping, transfer and disbursement of those funds,” but was “unable to account for the funds as required by law.”

Drew was the one who took and logged payments. All customers who paid had their money credited to their account, but in some cases the date of the deposit was “back dated” so that the payments didn’t show up on daily reports and nothing seemed unusual.